Russian forces being redeployed to Kursk region as Ukrainian incursion continues

Russia has redeployed troops towards its southwestern Kursk region in view of the ongoing incursion by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) into the area, The Economist reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source in the AFU General Staff.

While the ultimate goals of the Ukrainian push into Russian territory remain unclear, the fundamental objective appears to be forcing the Russian military to redirect troops from its “stranglehold” in the Kharkiv region and Donbas, though based on early evidence, The Economist said the results so far had been “inconclusive”.

“Their commanders aren’t idiots,” the Ukrainian source said, adding: “They are moving forces, but not as quickly as we would like. They know we can’t extend logistics 80 or 100 kilometres [inside Russian territory].”

“The nation believes it has uncovered a vulnerability in Vladimir Putin’s armour,” The Economist wrote, noting that the Kursk operation had already served to improve AFU morale. “For the first time in a long time we have movement,” one Ukrainian soldier told the publication, adding that he felt “like a tiger”.

The AFU launched its surprise incursion into Russian territory on Tuesday. After days of silence on the subject, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his nightly address to the nation on Saturday that Ukraine’s “actions to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” were applying “exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor”.

Ukrainian military intelligence hotline I Want To Live, which was set up in September 2022 to provide Russian soldiers with a safe way to surrender to the Ukrainian authorities, shared a video on Sunday that allegedly showed members of the Chechen Akhmat special forces battalion who had been captured deep within the Kursk region. The three blindfolded men who spoke to the camera said they were from Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, though only one confirmed that he served with Akhmat.

The AFU has used tanks to attack Russian defences along Ukraine’s border with the Belgorod region, which borders the Kursk region, according to Telegram channel Dva Mayora, while local pro-war Telegram channels have reported fighting in the Belgorod region border village of Kolotilovka, leading to Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov’s announcement on Monday that the authorities had begun evacuating the region’s Krasnoyaruzhsky district.